


Like the Tide

by paradiamond



Category: The Rook (TV 2019)
Genre: 1.08 AU, F/F, F/M, Getting Back Together, Myf didn’t try to leave and Gestalt was still mad and they got no catharsis, Mystalt, Other, angst and then release, gestalt pov, post season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 10:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: Gestalt categorically denied Myfanwy’s request to reconnect, and now they’re paying for it.





	Like the Tide

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is -   
Gestalt, dramatically: don’t talk to me anymore I don’t want to see you  
Myf: sad but ok I’ll respect that  
Gestalt: wait, fuck

The thing was, Conrad’s plan was good. He’d clearly put a lot of thought into it and his enthusiasm was infectious. But combining all the different offices was a logistical nightmare, and in some cases, dangerous. EVAs that had worked in their own little teams for years were suddenly thrown together, and the resulting friction was sometimes explosive. And clothing destroying. 

Robert watched Myfanwy sort through box after box of files, the ripped neckline of her t-shirt hanging halfway down her chest, exposing her plain tan bra. It had a small bow in the middle, resting right on the central bone of her sternum. She’d been pushing the shirt back up since the EVA had been wrested away and to the cells to cool down, but that had been hours ago and she seemed to have given up, and now Gestalt had too. 

“Could you put on a shirt?”

Myfanwy looked up, frowning. “What? Am I distracting you?”

They fixed her with a stern look. As stern as Robert could manage. “Yes.”

Infuriatingly, she put her hands on her hips, displaying herself even more. “Come off it. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. And aren’t you also a woman?” 

Robert sneered at her. “Yes. Women are attracted to other women, aren’t they? Don’t be reductive.” 

Myfanwy rolled her eyes. “Sure. But lesbians share changing rooms with other women without an issue.”

Robert stood, pivoting sharply to the desk to pick up the jacket they’d left hanging over the back of the chair. “Well, I’m not really a lesbian, or a woman, or a man. I’m myself and right now I’m distracted.” They snapped the jacket open, holding it out for her. It was Alex’s, bright red and far too big for her, but it would have to do.

“Fine, point taken,” Myfanwy said, and stripped off the ruins of her shirt, utterly unselfconscious, before stepping forward and turning around to let them put it on her. Even let them zip it up. It was torment, being this close. Worse being away, though. 

As soon as she was covered, Robert stepped away like they’d been burned, busying themself in work. Burying themselves in it all over the office. Eliza in the weapons locker, taking inventory, Teddy talking to Conrad, Alex supervising the vehicle move. Trying not to watch her roll up Alex’s sleeves in quick, sharp movements. Trying not to think about how the jacket would smell when she gave it back. 

The silence was suffocating. It had been like this for weeks, ever since they had shut down any avenue moving forward when they stopped by her office as Teddy the day after she asked them to reconnect and told her no, they didn’t want to get close to her again. What they had was gone. She was upset, but understood. Said she’d respect their choices. Tears in her eyes that she blinked away while across the hall, Alex leaned against the bathroom wall and let a few fall. 

But then Linda was released from their custody and subsequently captured, and they had to help rescue her. And then they found a draft letter from Myfanwy in the office trash where’d she apparently thought about running away with her sister, but changed her mind. Who was to say that she wouldn’t change it back? She was a risk. A threat to their career. But they still craved her, and didn’t know how to make it stop. 

Everything just turned into a giant mess, but there was so much work to be done they barely had time to fixate on it. So now they spent their time just staring at her like a crazy person, wondering how they got to this point. 

Eventually, Myfanwy’s head snapped up, clearly annoyed. “What now?”

Robert frowned. “I’m just looking at you.”

“Well could you stop? It’s distracting.”

They dropped their eyes back to the computer screen. “Fine.” 

“Fine.” 

For a while, the only sound was the slide of paper on paper and their own slow typing. Emails. Reports. They tried to focus on what was ahead of them, but felt pulled back into the past, when they were not quite happy, but not unhappy like this, either. Wanting but keeping away from the risk. Now that they’d been burned, though not in the way they’d thought, the memories were that much more bittersweet. 

The party. The times they had dinner together. That time Myfanwy was over at their place so they could drive together for a long meeting out of the city. She’d been curled up on their long couch, feet tucked under her, when Eliza walked in, arms spread. 

“How do I look?” 

Myfanwy looked them up and down, then craned her neck to look over her shoulder, like she was looking for the rest. 

Eliza laughed. “Already left. Just this one is fine,” she said, smoothing her hands down the sharp lines of the dress, and Myfanwy smiled. 

“Well then that’s easy, it’s very nice.” 

They’d wanted to bend over at the waist and kiss her cheek for it, but didn’t. Instead they smiled back and bustled her out of the apartment and into the car, where they talked the whole way about nothing. Anything. Now it was so quiet Robert wasn’t sure she was even breathing. 

They glanced up, and she was already looking back at them, mouth set in a hard line. One of the jacket sleeves had fallen down. Her arms were too skinny to hold them up for long. “What?” 

Robert frowned. “You’re the one looking at me, this time.” 

She opened her mouth, then closed it, turning back to the file in her hand. They couldn’t stand it. “What?” 

Myfanwy jerked her head back up, and the other sleeve slipped down. “Nothing.” 

“It’s not nothing!” 

“Well you don’t want to hear it.”

“Yes, I-” 

She closed the file with a snap. “You’re the one that told me no.” 

“I know.”

“You said to stay away, and I’ve stayed away.”

“I know!” 

“So what is it?” 

Robert looked away. They were shaking. She made them so mad. So everything. Even now, when she was functionally a different person, she was still the same as when they would go out to the fields and hide from the other students. The other patients, or trainees, or whatever it was they were. Find an outcropping of rocks during a training exercise or a shaded spot under a tree. And she never just sat still. Gestalt watched her pull her fingers through the grass and dig up little rocks and worms. 

Once, she found a four-leaf clover and it was like she struck gold. 

“Look!” Myfanwy held up the tiny lucky charm. “It’s you. Four pieces, one plant!”

Gestalt stared at her, mind utterly blank. 

She dropped her hand, her face falling at the same time. “Sorry, I was-”

“No,” they’d said, through Eliza as Alex took the tiny plant in their already big fingers. “It’s sweet. Thank you.”

They kept it. Still had it. Stupid, especially now. 

The conversation Myfanwy had with Linda was on tape. She’d lost her camera disabling privileges after her investigation. Probably hadn’t even thought about it. Linda said that Myfanwy agreed to leave, that she’d been scared, but willing. Far from fighting it, she was willing to erase Gestalt from her mind completely. Could let them go that easily. Like a decade of friendship was nothing. Like her understanding of what they’d been doing together had been so very different from what Gestalt had imagined even before her memory was lost. 

“Gestalt?” 

Robert smacked their hand down on the table, making her jump. “Can you just focus? We’re here to work!” Her blank stare just made them more angry. “What are you even doing here? You have no memory of your career, you never even use your ability. Conrad only keeps you around now to keep an eye on you, so go home! It’s late.” 

Myfanwy’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?” 

Strictly speaking, this wasn't fair. She’d worked hard to catch up, and it wasn’t like her natural aptitude had been affected. Still. They weren’t one to back down once they’d started down a path. 

Robert stood up, and was shocked when Myfanwy did the same, her face dark, like she wouldn’t back down either. They kept their head high. “You’re an admin. A good one, but you don’t need to be here right now when I’m trying to get work done. Maybe if your ability-” 

“What about my ability?” Myfanwy asked, and the lights flickered as she stalked towards them, pushing the sleeves back up and out of her way as she moved. “What do you even know about it?” 

“I-”

“Because from what I understand you’re partly right and the old me never even began to touch her power. She was afraid.” Myfanwy drew level with Robert, almost the same height, eye to eye. “I’m not.” 

Robert let out a harsh, shuddering breath. “I can see that.” 

“Do you?” She reached out, but didn't close the last of the distance, letting her hand hang there, like a snake poised to strike. “Do you know what it feels like when I touch you?” 

They knew what it felt like on their end- like she touched all their hands simultaneously. Like she saw the whole of their mind the way they did. Like she knew them. 

“No.” Gestalt tried not to pant, or do anything else embarrassing. “Tell me.” 

Myfanwy leaned back. “Maybe I won’t. You don’t want to know, clearly, so-”

They grabbed onto her arms, skin to skin, and they could feel that power, moving through her like a live current. “I do. I always did.” 

“Do? Or did?” Myfanwy shook her head. “I can’t live in the past, not anymore.” 

“I know,” Robert said, and leaned in to kiss her, like they’d wanted to do a thousand times. Like they did before. 

She turned her face so that their lips landed on her cheek. “And don’t you kiss me to shut me up, either!”

They laughed, suddenly light. She was still touching them. She was still here, not dead under a bridge or starting a new life with a long lost relative. Here, with them. “Fine, fine. Can I kiss you for another reason?”

Myfanwy pursed her lips. “What?”

They hooked their hand around the back of her neck, and tipped her face up. “I want to.

Something childish and pouty crept into her expression, and her hands fisted in their shirt, twisting it up. “I asked you weeks ago-”

“I know.” Robert let go of her arm to touch her face. They stroked her skin. “I was hurt. I needed the time.”

Her bottom lip actually quivered, but her gaze held. “It must have been awful.”

“Yes.”

“It was awful for me too.”

“I know.” They leaned in, kissed her gently, thrilling in the way she kissed them back, then pulled away again. “I know.”

Myfanwy smiled, then hooked her arms around their neck, pulling them in. Robert hummed into her mouth, revealing in the slide of her tongue against the seam of their lips, then on their own tongue, the roof of their mouth, everywhere. It wasn’t the frenzy they had before. It was Myfanwy dressed in their own soft red jacket, pressed into them. Leaning in. Pushing to be held. 

It seemed crazy, but they realized they could have another first time, as far as she was concerned. Maybe that was the way to think about it. Maybe there was never going to be the perfect time to start this. Only something that was slow. Steady. Across the building, another one of them walked with a measured pace, pleasantly affected but not compromised. Then another. All of them, walking to her. Joined. Birds returning home after winter. 

Robert led her back, and she went without resistance, allowing the to lift her up and set her back down on the table, still kissing. She kissed like she was savoring them, not like she was starved. Not the way she’d been before. Gestalt sighed, and she breathed them in, tucking her face into their neck to catch her own breath again. 

“Is this alright?” 

“Yes.” 

The nice thing about the new space was that as much as Conrad appreciated clean lines and good design, he’d always hated the glass walls. So when Eliza slipped inside and closed the door, they were alone. Closed in and safe. 

Myfanwy caught Eliza’s eye and smiled, held out her hand. The lights flickered again, then dimmed, casting a soft glow over her. Sharp as she was, softness suited her. Eliza running her fingers through her hair, sliding her lips from the edge of her jaw to the place behind her ear. Her sighs. 

Teddy got there next, leaned back against the door, watching out for them all while Alex was double checking camera feeds. No need for this to be recorded. Then they slipped away to join, smoothly taking Teddy’s place at the door. And all the while Myfanwy didn’t lose her focus, trusting them to look out for her. Which they did, always. 

Gestalt pressed one last kiss to the space where her collarbones met and then leaned back, bringing them back to reality. “Love?”

She broke away from Eliza’s neck, looking up into Robert’s eyes. “Yes?”

“Let’s go home?”

The smile spread across her face like the dawn. Little Myfanwy Thomas with her four leaf clover. “Sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm at paradiamond.tumblr.com for more nonsense (:


End file.
